


the root of the root and the bud of the bud

by nagia



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (2017)
Genre: F/M, Mutually Dubious Consent, Sex Pollen, Sex Pollen With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-10-20 04:26:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10654878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: There's a new drug in town, a warehouse full of dead shitbags (and newly empty of a strange, tropical-looking flower), and Karen Page has the kind of connections that might help him figure out what this shit is.





	1. reverdie

It's a damn ridiculously long fight for a lone warehouse-turned-secret-sweatshop on the outskirts of Hell's Kitchen. Red, naturally, doesn't seem to give a damn that upwards of a dozen men were guarding this empty, broken down shithole. Frank sees him get tired around Shitbag Number 7, and switches from the gun loaded with beanbag rounds to the gun loaded with lethal ones. He spares the Daredevil's no-kill sensibilities by shooting for kneecaps.

They're both breathing a little hard by the time Shitbag Number 16 has finally fallen to the concrete floor. Murdock kicks him in the head one last time, just to be sure, and the bastard doesn't even twitch.

Which just means that Murdock's beaten him into a literal coma, since even concussed assholes try to protect their heads, but hey, the shitbag's not dead. Justice has (somehow) been done. A good night's been had by all.

Now to get to the real work: figuring out whatever the fuck they used this place for.

Frank drifts through the place. He can't help but notice the UV lights and the mirrors first. But as he looks around, he starts seeing the high ceilings, the fact that the windows are all cracked open, the industrial grade fans that are running. He wonders for a moment if the fans mess with Red's freakish hearing, but then again, he still got the job done tonight. Must not have bothered him too badly.

"They're real worried about proper ventilation," Frank points out, knowing that Murdock will hear him.

Murdock's response is to move a thick metal divider that makes a rusted, agonized screech as it goes. It almost makes Frank clap his hands over his ears, so he can only imagine the pain of being right next to that thing. 

A moment later, Murdock says, clipped and urgent, "Over here."

He goes in that direction, and finds the Devil of Hell's kitchen standing in an area that had been blocked off. It's a good thing Frank didn't see this until now, because he's not sure he would have been willing to go as easy as rubber bullets or kneecaps if he'd seen this earlier.

Their secret greenhouse worked on sweatshop labor. Slave labor, probably. And not a single one of the workers looks older than about twelve, although it's hard to pin ages on a bunch of unmoving kids he can only half see in the random, scattershot light, especially when they're piled on top of each other and wearing surgical masks to boot. At a guess, he'd say no one's younger than eight or so, but they all look frail and bony, with baggy clothes and paper thin wrists covered by outlandishly purple latex gloves.

Some of the surgical masks are printed with smiley faces or flowers. There are neat little bullet holes in their foreheads, three per kid. He doesn't even want to think about the exit wounds.

It takes him back to his knees on slick grass, the scents of hot glycerin and burnt sawdust and blood. Exit wounds through Lisa's face, warping and twisting and cutting it until only he could have known his baby girl —

"Fuck me," Frank says under his breath. "Jesus, Red. The fuck were they wrapped up in?"

"Let's find out." Murdock sounds grim.

They poke around the makeshift greenhouse until Frank turns up the cargo. It's row after row of flowers in neat little clay pots, all hidden under some sort of glass dome. Condensation beads on the glass, and the UV lights here are especially strong. Hothouse flowers, he thinks, and it kind of makes sense, because they look tropical. Like something from one of those flower necklaces that hula girls wear.

Hell if he knows what they actually are, though. He knows tulips and irises and roses on sight, and he remembers that Maria liked the smell of gardenias, but he always had to call the neighborhood florist a week ahead to get 'em in a bouquet. These big, open-looking, white-and-yellow things are none of those.

"Flowers," Frank says, and he knows his voice comes out in a growl. He's working his way up to seriously pissed now, the kind of pissed that means taking his side-arm to the heads of the shitbags who let this happen and firing away.

He'd only need one shot per.

"They died," he says, "for fucking flowers?"

Murdock tilts his head, then taps on the glass dome. Drops of dew fall from glass to flower pots. Murdock tilts his head the other way, then asks, "Can you identify them?"

"No."

But Frank reaches into his coat, pulling out his phone. He takes a picture of the flowers and sends it to a contact he lists only as 'Bulletin,' along with the text, 'What are these?' A few minutes later, she replies with two words: 'Frangipani, maybe?'

She doesn't ask who he is, or how he got her number, or why he thinks he can contact her. He's pretty damn sure now that the woman is batshit crazy. Or she had some inkling that he'd be working with Murdock tonight, and is putting up with him to support her — whatever the hell Murdock is to her.

"Page thinks they might be frangipani." Not that he's ever heard of them. "You ever heard of 'em?"

"I haven't, no."

A quick Google search turns up that the frangipani tree is used for making incense. But these are not tiny trees; they're more like little bushes. And what would people who're willing to shoot kids want with incense, anyway?

"Vegan hippie designer drug, maybe," he says, like vegan hippies would be fine with child labor and execution. Then again, he's pretty sure half the vegans he ever met _would_ , as long as no cows got hurt.

And then he makes one of the absolute dumbest decisions he ever has in his life. He reaches out and lifts the glass dome. He can feel his fingers immediately start to sweat beneath his gloves, at the sudden rush of heat and humidity, but he ignores that and grabs two of the clay pots. They knock together briefly.

"I'll find somewhere safe to stash these. You find a botanist to beat up until they agree to identify them."

* * *

The decision to take the damn mystery plant to Page's place is an easy one. Page is obviously willing to jump in and help on this one, and holding onto a couple of plants seems like one of the safest options. Safer than the shit she regularly gets up to, if he's right about her articles. Even better, she has connections through the _Bulletin_ that might mean an easier time finding a botanist.

He shoves the two flower pots into the floorboard of his truck and makes the drive. The flowers, he starts noticing as the minutes tick by, smell very, very sweet. So sweet it gives him a headache, and he's pretty sure his eyes have started puffing up. They're definitely itchy as hell. He has to drop the wheel for a second every so often to try and rub some of that swelling away.

By the time he reaches Page's building, the headache is that unique blend of lancing pain and steady pressure that means it's here to stay for a while. Well, it's not like he hasn't had worse.

Page doesn't leave him on her fire escape for long. He can't help but note the way her hair falls, darker than usual from her shower, and leaves wet circles on her over-large t-shirt. Or the way the shirt whips a little, outlining the shape of her, when she opens the window to let him in.

Rather than the flat wariness he expected, she seems entirely unsurprised to see him. Like she was expecting him, maybe, like vigilantes who turned their backs on her just turn up on her fire escape all the time. Maybe they do.

Or maybe Murdock let her know he was coming.

"Frank," she says, and even if she isn't breathless, there's a quality in her voice he could swear he sensed before, during the thing with the ninjas. When, out of dozens of bystanders and police, she'd been the one to see him on his rooftop.

"Ma'am," he says, and rather than try to explain, he reaches back through the window and grabs the first of the flower pots.

"You're bringing me flowers?" Her eyebrows go up. "Frank, I've had a weird week, and the weirdest thing is that the Punisher bringing me flowers isn't even the weirdest thing."

He feels his own eyebrows go up. "Sounds like a hell of a story. But these ain't — this isn't that, ma'am."

It feels like some sort of admission. Like he should be explaining that of course this isn't that, he wouldn't do that. But it also feels like he doesn't have to, because she knows. He can see it in her eyes that she already knows, because of course she does. She always has.

That's probably the weirdest part.

"Okay," she says. "Okay. What is this, then?"

"Part of the case Red and I are working," he tells her. "Need you to hold onto 'em, see if you can find someone who knows what they are."

Page stares at him for a long, long minute. Her eyes tremble, but pretty much the only time she doesn't look like a frightened rabbit is when she's got a gun in her hands. (Then she looks like a frightened rabbit who's about to fucking shoot somebody.)

"I knew it was you," she says eventually. "When you texted me. I knew it was you. I knew — should I have expected this? Should I have expected you to drop this in my lap?"

"Probably," he admits. "That — that number. Don't save it. Delete everything." That she received an image as a text from his burner's number will stay in her carrier's records, but no need to make _easy_ for anyone to link them.

"I already did," she says, and her eyes find his, and for a moment there's a spark of humor lingering in the air between them. Her mouth curls up in that same suggestion of a smile she'd given him in the diner all those weeks ago. 

He feels his own lips twitch. It's a dead man's grin, just a shape on his face. A moment of levity. It doesn't make him alive.

It doesn't.

Page blows out her breath in a sigh. There's a tinge of sadness in her expression. Maybe wistfulness. Something dissatisfied, anyway, but all she says is, "Alright, Frank. Alright. I'll put them by a window, I guess, and I'll see if anybody in the bullpen knows a botanist."

He heads back down the fire escape. It doesn't quite feel like turning his back on her this time. Rather than shut her out, like an idiot, he's dragged her back in — 

That would be _Murdock's_ take on it, at least. Frank knows better than to think she wasn't willing to be involved. He won't pretend it's not crazy or that he totally understands it, won't pretend he fully knows her reasons, but she's in this. She's in it, and he can accept that.

* * *

His truck still smells like a cotton candy machine exploded inside it. Frank cracks the driver-side window, at first. Then he rolls it down. Then he rolls down the other three, and his thoughts flash back to the opened windows in the warehouse and the industrial-strength fans.

So, the strength of the smell — and of the allergic reaction; shit, he's pretty sure his eyes are watering by now and he itches deep inside his ears — explains all that.

The bushes left yellow pollen stains on his floorboard, he notes when he hits the overhead light. He hates doing that, hates the way it lights him up in the car and makes an easy target of him, but it's the most thorough way to make sure he's not leaving guns or ammunition in plain sight.

He dumps the armor and the big coat, switches it out for a hoodie and a baseball cap, and walks Max. It's always the first thing he does when he gets back.

Frank's legs are all but shaking with exhaustion by the time he gets back to his apartment, but his thoughts are wired, dizzying, electric. He keeps himself up by tending to his guns, and his fingers shake. He's usually pretty twitchy, but this is a little too jittery even for him. He's seriously keyed up, and it's probably no wonder.

Been a busy night, he tells himself as he finally pushes himself up from the desk where he maintains his guns. He makes sure everything's secured on the racks, and then he heads for the shower.

He's being generous calling his latest safehouse an apartment. It's more like a shithole with running water — but god, does the water run good. He's not sure how the water pressure ended up being perfect, but it is, and there is absolutely nothing like the way it stings his back. It doesn't help his bruises, but it loosens up muscles that have tightened from the shit he puts them through.

And it's been such a crazy night that he doesn't question the sudden impulse to jerk himself off. It'll calm his nerves; he wants to, he needs it a little. It even feels good.

He closes his eyes and leans against the shower stall. He has to stop for a moment when his thoughts stray to Maria. She's gone, and it feels sick to picture her like that. Worse still, he can't stop seeing her in the blood-slick grass outside the Carousel.

He finishes a little messier than usual, but doesn't think much of it. The stupid headache has finally gone, too, packed up and left sometime while he was in the shower. He breathes a deep, deep sigh of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might look familiar! That's because I'm pulling it from my tumblr. I want to get a little further into the third chapter before I post the second, but I'm Getting Serious about this fic, so that will hopefully be soon.


	2. sumer is icumen in

He should have known it wouldn't be that easy. That painless.

Two nights later, he gives Page a call. Just to see where she is with finding his botanist. He's parked his cotton-candy-smelling truck underneath a dead streetlight, and hunkers low in the driver's seat as he dials her number.

The line rings for what seems like forever, and the minute Page's recorded voice says, 'You've reached Karen Page,' he sits up straight in his seat. Alarm runs through him, pounds his heart like a damn drum and sends jolts of adrenaline all over. It's like having a fever of a hundred and three and then jumping into an ice bath: a shuddering mix of hot and cold.

He calls again, and again, her voicemail clicks on.

Alarm turns to certainty. He switches the phone to his left hand and leans forward, turning the keys in the ignition. He's dialling her again even as he swings the truck from his parking space and into the night time streets.

This time, she answers. But her voice is a little high pitched, short of breath. "F-Frank?"

"Ma'am," he says. "You didn't answer. Everything okay?"

Page doesn't reply. In fact, there's a long pause. He can hear her breathing into the space between them. She's gasping softly, her breaths shallow.

"Ma'am?" He asks. When she doesn't answer, he snaps, "Ma'am. Karen. Stay with me, yeah? _Are you okay_?"

"Huh? Yeah," she says on a sigh, "'m fine. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Frank considers telling her he's on his way toward her, then decides not to. "You just didn't answer. You have a botanist on the line for me?"

"What?" She sounds genuinely confused, now.

They've had their differences. He hasn't been her favorite person since he killed Schoonover — as if she has any right to judge him for that — but there have been stories and missions that they've traded information on. Between his new work and the days of the trial, he's seen her in any number of stressful situations, and he's pretty sure that Karen Page is almost never confused. Is she drunk? High? Sick? Has she been drugged?

"'member those flowers I gave you a couple days back? Did you ever find a botanist for them?"

"Oh! The flowers," she gasps. But then she offers him a breathless laugh, too quiet and distracted for a giggle.

If he weren't already absolutely convinced that something was wrong, that would just about do it. He doesn't bother buzzing at her door or even trying to force the lock. He heads around the building, to the alley nearest her window, and makes his way up the fire escape. Frank takes the ladders as quickly as he learned to at Quantico. Maybe faster. 

He opens the fire escape window — and he's going to have to talk to her about locking the damned thing; leaving that window unlocked is too close to suicidal — and makes his way into the apartment. He hasn't taken two steps before the smell hits him. It's still sugar-sweet, every bit as sticky as the scent in his car, but there's a faint warmth underneath it, like cinnamon or cloves. 

Something twinges in the back of Frank's skull, itching and starting up an ache.

He doesn't have to look hard to find her. She'd curled herself onto her uncomfortable-looking wicker couch, although she at least had the sense to smother it in pillows and blankets. And Karen, who had always been full of energy, who even when she'd been still had never seemed at peace, is lying relaxed, with her eyes closed, breaths slow and shallow.

Frank immediately drops to one knee, reaching out to press his hand against her forehead. She's hot and clammy — way too hot — and Frank lets his hand ghost down, tilting her head by the chin until she's looking him in the eyes. She looks up at him without seeming to see him, eyes fever-bright and glassy.

"One hell of a fever you got, Page," he tells her.

She doesn't argue with him. Doesn't reply at all, actually, just turns her face so her cheek is resting against his palm and lets her eyes flutter closed. Her lashes are dark against the pale white of her cheeks. He hates that he notices that, the contrast.

"Nope," he says. "No ma'am, you're not going to sleep on me. Looks to me like your brain is cooking in your skull. Can you stand?"

"Feel better on the… lying… you know. Everything doesn't spin as much."

If alarm bells weren't already going off in his head, if he wasn't already wondering if she needed to be in a hospital, that trainwreck of a response would certainly have brought the thought to mind. Even furious with him, she's never been bad at articulating herself.

Frank turns on his heel and heads for the kitchen, throwing open cabinets until he finds the one with the bottles of pills. She's got the full range of OTC pain crap, with some shit called diphenhydramine to boot. He grabs the Tylenol and pours her a big glass of water.

Karen sucks the water down like she hasn't drunk anything in days. Frank would guess it's been at least several hours.

After the water, she does manage to stand. He follows her anyway, hands out and ready to steady her, to catch her. It's a surreal feeling, taking care of Karen. Half of him is in memories he doesn't want to visit, and half of him is reeling because Karen has always seemed unstoppable, fueled by some quest for answers.

She's steadier by the time she makes it to the bathroom. Frank's the one to hit the tap in her shower. Her water pressure isn't half so decent as his, but that doesn't matter now. He has to turn sideways to let her squeeze by him, and then he's out, closing the door. He doesn't hear it lock. It's almost a relief.

The headache has worsened by the time he makes it back to her main room. Throbbing from the base of skull toward his temples. There's a pressure to it. Like the other night, he thinks, when he brought the flowers to her. The scent had invaded his truck almost as bad as it has this apartment and given him one hell of a —

Frank grabs her phone. She doesn't have a password lock on it (another thing to talk to her about), and he scrolls through. Text to 'Ellison' about being out of the office for a few days while she chased down leads on a warehouse story, text to Murdock telling him she wanted answers on a couple cases Frank is willing to let them handle themselves. Long string of texts with Nelson, ending about a day ago.

Last text out is just the word _migraine_.

Frank's gaze turns toward the plants. He remembers the way the big fans had been running. Flashes back to the kids in the surgical masks. Their latex gloves.

And he changes his theory from 'vegan hippie designer drug' to 'component in a biological weapon.' Jesus Christ, this shit could easily be as bad as tear gas. He's got to get the flowers out of here.

Problem is, where? Where can he put something with pollen that makes people sick in a densely populated city? Frank racks his brains, trying to figure out a place, but his head hurts and the lights are too bright. He's getting dizzy, he realizes as the sound of the water stops.

He wasn't expecting the thump from the other side of the door, but he's not surprised by it, either. She said everything was spinning. 

Frank keeps a hand on the wall as he makes his way back to the bathroom. He doesn't have to force the door open; it swings open easy, letting out thick clouds of white steam. He waves a hand, moving the steam around, away, and realizes that Karen hadn't tripped over anything. She'd just slumped to the shower floor and clumsily leaned her head against the wall. Her clothes are on the bathroom floor.

"Can't stand up anymore?" He asks her. He tries to keep his eyes on her face. She looks a little more focused, less glassy, but her expression says 'exhausted.' Karen shakes her head. 

So Frank shrugs out of his coat and peels his way out of the vest. It's rough, it's clunky. And she doesn't seem steady enough to try and shoot him right now. He steps half into the shower, scoops her up with one arm under her knees and the other at her back. She doesn't struggle, doesn't resist. Hell, she even twines her arms around his neck and rests her head against his chest. She's still soaking wet, and he can feel the shape of her drenching through his shirts. The warmth of her. 

She's almost his height, and that makes the carry awkward. But he makes it to the couch and sets her gently down. She curls up on her dragon's hoard of throw pillows, skin pale and glistening in lights that hurt his eyes, make his head hurt worse. After a minute she reaches out for him, tugging, and it's weird, because Frank doesn't think she's ever touched him once, but he goes. Lets himself collapse onto the couch and the mountain of fabric next to her. Lets her lean against him.

She's warm. Soft. It feels nice, he realizes. He should probably stand up, find her something to wear. At least a t-shirt or something. But he doesn't want to stand up; he wants to stay right here. And he doesn't actually have to. There's a fucking mountain of blankets —

Karen's hand snakes over, fingertips resting on his stomach.

He almost jumps, instead closes his hand around her wrist and grips, tight, ready to grab her at the elbow and twist. He feels the small bones grind together.

"Frank —" His name comes out in a noise that's somewhere between gasp and sob.

Shit. "Shit. Sorry, I didn't mean — I." He lets go.

"Reflex," she says. She doesn't take her hand back, though. When he looks over at her, she's peering up at his face with that same damn mix of curiosity, wariness, and something else she'd showed him before.

He'd been using her as bait, then.

She reaches out with the same hand he just snagged. But she brushes her thumb over his cheek. Her hands are so soft, and her eyes are way too bright but don't look glazed, exactly, anymore. Fever must be down, he thinks, grabbing her hand and gently squeezing her arm, swiping his thumb over the skin.

When she kisses him — movements delicate, lower lip a little chapped — it seems natural. Sane. Of course she leans toward him, tilting her head. Of course he meets her almost halfway. Of course she closes that last gap.

Frank reaches out, grabbing her at the hips. He breaks the kiss a moment to watch, to see how much of her skin he covers when he splays his hands. Then he tugs her toward him, pulling her into his lap.

Turns out that was exactly what they both needed. She makes a little noise into his mouth, some quick hum. Pleasure and need. He rubs his thumbs over her hipbones — she squirms, and shit, that feels — he lets his hands slide down, cups the curve of her ass. Which just makes her squirm more, which just —

She smiles for him, clamps her legs around his waist while she twines her arms around his neck again, when he stands up, one surge and then he's on his feet. He carries her over to the bed. Slides one hand up from her waist, along her bare back, to cup the back of her head. Her hair is wet and heavy and his fingers get lost in it, tangled, but then she slots her mouth against his and he couldn't care less if he tried.

Karen takes her sweet time unhooking from him and falling back onto the bed. She can't seem to stop touching him, clutching at his hands, running hers along the side of his face, of his throat, the back of his neck. Her hands are warm against his skin, but they're soothing, too, and he drags his t-shirt and the henley he'd been wearing under it off.

She makes a greedy noise and immediately starts running her hands over his chest. Tracing the lines of scars, walking her fingers over his abs. The pads of her fingers are soft, so soft, delicate little points of slow heat against skin that's suddenly feverish and sensitive.

He's gonna go crazy. Maybe he's already crazy.

He drags his mouth along her jawline, down her throat. Feels her shudder under him. She slides her fingers into his hair as he traces his way down. Some part of him questions — wants to know why the fuck he's doing this, why the fuck he thinks it's a good idea. Wants to know, too, why she's pulling him closer, drawing his head down toward her breast rather than shoving him away.

He plants a kiss on the curve of her breast, but keeps working his way down. She wriggles more, obviously torn between moving away from his mouth on her stomach and pulling him closer. Ticklish and turned on at the same time, he thinks. But then he's smoothing his palms along her calves, her knees, her thighs, and she's so wet he can see it.

"Gorgeous," he says, and his voice comes out hoarse. His throat feels thick, swollen, and his mouth has gone dry. Is it because he wants her, when he's not used to wanting anymore?

He stares down at her, at the blond hair that hangs loose over her shoulders, clumped together and darkened by the water that's still dripping onto her skin, rolling down in beads like — 

Stares, and tries to remember if this is supposed to be happening. Were they...? But his head hurts, and she's beautiful, long-limbed and pale and all but glowing in the light of her bedside lamp. Pale pink nipples stiff and turning pinker, even as she shivers a little from the fact that it's winter and she's naked and — 

Frank dips his head down. Kisses her thigh. Traces the line of a vein, running blue through creamy white skin, with the pad of his thumb, then chases after with lips and tongue.

She wriggles again, shifting, opening her legs for him. To make this easier on him.

But Frank reaches out, grabbing her by the waist. Throwing her more onto her back, lifting her hips. She laughs, breathless, and rests one delicate calf on his shoulder.

"Is this — is this how you want it?"

"Got you exactly how I want you," he tells her. And then he dives in, not even giving her time to adjust. Buries his face in the scent of her, salty-sweet and a little musky.

Years. It's been years since — since this. Years since he made a woman — any woman, not that there was ever anyone else, anyone but _her_ , not that there had ever been any woman but Maria — shift and squirm, laughing and wet, with just his breath on her. Long, controlled breaths, because Christ but he loved taking his time with it, loved being deliberate here, now, like this, before he shook apart later.

He hears the whisper-soft sound of her hands grabbing onto the sheets and gripping tight when he parts her with gentle swipes of his tongue, lapping up and down and then slowly, slowly, slowly — 

Christ, she's warm. He can see the flush creeping down from her collarbone toward her belly, patches of pink and red along her thigh.

She shudders as he circles his tongue around her clit. Clenches her fists around her sheets as he keeps going, as he presses his tongue inside her. She's gasping, and it's easy, it's so easy. Something about it feels wrong, like this wasn't in his plan, but her breathing's gone ragged and the salt of her is in his mouth and it feels so good, Christ, he's getting the kind of hard he can't ignore —

And she's quiet, and so still, when she comes for him. It's like her whole body tenses tight in one long inward curl, and then she shakes a little as she relaxes with a sigh he can barely hear.

"That was easy," he says, as he sits up. Much easier than he was expecting, and he might be smirking at her, maybe, as he asks, "You always like —?"

Karen shakes her head. She reaches for him, though, pulls him back toward her with needy fingers and a ready kiss. He kisses her slow and thorough, doesn't hurry as he covers her mouth with his, takes his time as he pushes into her mouth, past her unresisting lips, and the kiss turns messy. She must feel the press of him against her thigh; he swears he can feel her, the softness of her skin, the heat of her, through his jeans.

This kiss seems to go on forever. He presses close and pulls her closer, hands busy exploring the shape of her. Running his palm over the curve of her hip, along her side. He cups her breast in his hand, keeps his touch light, but he can feel the heat of her, and she arches into his hand, even as she starts running her hands over him again.

He's got her practically trapped against the bed, but she manages to get her hands between them. He breaks the kiss to look down and watch her unbuckle his belt. There's a fine tremor that goes through her hands, and when he looks back up, her eyes are dark, pupils huge and shining in the low light, the bright blue of her irises turned into a thin ring he can barely see.

His own hands shake when he sits up and tosses the belt away. Frank feels lightheaded as he unlaces his boots. He ends up pulling half the laces out of one of them, then kicking them both across the room. One boot lands in the living room, the other lands near the bathroom. 

This is new for them. They've never done this before. What they've done is be surprisingly honest with each other; they've trusted each other in ways that wouldn't make sense with anybody else or to anybody else. But they haven't done this.

That's important. He knows it's important. But he can't pin down why, and Karen murmurs, "Come here," her second most coherent sentence of the night, and her voice comes from somewhere low in her throat and sounds like it could crack in two from breathlessness and thirst.

He unzips his fly and hooks his thumbs in his boxers, and then he's joining her in her tiny bed again. It creaks under their weight, but he just settles himself in next to her. Pulls her to him for another kiss.

She breaks it with a laugh, all husky and hoarse, and th en she's exploring him with her hands. She traces over his scars like they're constellations, maps them out with mouth and fingers and the dark sweep of her eyes. She never asks for stories, only moves on to unscarred skin, and he's a shivering wreck underneath her touch.

How could he have craved it so badly and never known he wanted it? Even the warm weight of her palm against his shoulder, steadying her as she straddles him, feels amazing. It's exactly what he didn't know he needed.

He'd heard the word 'skinhunger' tossed around — Maria had been a music teacher for two local elementaries; all her friends were in child development — and thought it was creepy. Now he's starting to get it, now that his body craves the woman in bed with him. The word's not just about the target of the hunger, more skin against his skin, more of this, more of all of it, right now, but about where he feels it, too. It starts so shallow and bites so deep.

The pinpricks of heat from her fingertips find their way to his stomach, down to his groin. She wraps her hand around his cock, the touch delicate, the pressure loose, and he has to breathe, in through his nose and out through his mouth, because Jesus fucking Christ how does she expect him to take much more of that?

"Page," he says, "Page, stop, I'm gonna — I'm not gonna last like that."

She lets him go, and then they're moving. Karen kicks one of her pillows off the bed and braces the other against her headboard. She scoots backwards, inching in a way that is actually kind of hilariously unsexy, and, shit, even laughing at her feels good right now. It doesn't hurt to be happy, to think about happy, and he crawls up after her.

This time, when Karen parts her thighs, Frank takes his time. Lets his hands linger on her soft skin as he pushes her legs apart a little wider, caressing instead of just moving her where he needs her.

Sliding into her slowly, feeling the stretch of her around him — that in itself is almost too much. He doesn't want to hurt her, he wants a chance to savor it, but it's so good, so warm and soft and slick, and the headache is finally letting up, his brain finally relaxing in his skull. It goes on so _long_ that he thinks he might be going insane.

She reaches up. Slides one of her hands into his hair, grabs him by the shoulder with her other hand. Little points of pain — just barely enough to draw his attention from the way she she feels velvet-soft around him, the way her cunt clings to him — tell him she's dug her nails in until they left little cuts.

"Frank," she says, and then, "Frank, Frank, Frank," breathless and high-pitched and needy, and he can feel her tensing and relaxing around him, even as her nails dig in harder.

And he tells her, "Yeah, yeah, I got ya," because he does. He gets her. He has her. He knows what she wants, how she wants it.

So he changes his grip on her, pulling her legs up a little, and the change in angle lets him go faster. Drive deeper. Her head lolls back, and her eyes close, and they're pressed so close he can feel the sigh that ripples through her, the way her body relaxes at finally, finally, getting what it needs. She's still so soft, so warm. Slick and ready and loving every minute of it, he can feel it in the soft cling of her, the hand in his hair, the way her breath turns to soft gasps.

"Beautiful," he tells her, and has to swallow a laugh at the way she opens her eyes to look at him like he's crazy. "You're beautiful, so good for me, Christ, Page," he continues, and she closes her eyes again, and he can see her trying to focus on how good he's making her feel.

So he drags one hand up from her thigh, over her hip because he can, her skin soft and smooth and so warm, and reaches between her legs. So slick, so ready, she's practically dripping, and it's just a few swipes of his thumb over her clit before she's tensing again, _squeezing_ , her muscles shuddering like waves as she lets out a startled little "oh" and then he's following — 

It's like a tide. It's like whiting out. He thinks he might actually black out for a second, and not wholly from how it feels, and then he's curling downward, collapsing half on top of her. Rather than grunt and shove him away like any reasonable woman, she just wraps an arm around him. There's a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead — hell, he's probably sweaty himself — and he knows even as they settle in to stay put that they're gonna end up stuck together, but he doesn't care. He can't even muster the energy to pull out.

He didn't last as long as he usually did, but he's almost totally wiped. And it feels good, to stay like this. She's warm, and soft, and if she's fine with being half crushed then he's fine with half-crushing her.

Frank takes a breath in and can't escape the sugar-sweet scent of that damn flower. The salty musk of the two of them, though, almost drowns it out, and it's not so bad. The breath turns into a yawn — which she copies — one of those huge, jaw-creaking exhaustion yawns and then the world is gone, replaced with drowsy warmth and darkness.


	3. in the green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how Matt is going to come across here. I do think that Matt is generally well-intentioned. But from his perspective, something _incredibly_ shady is going on, and neither Frank nor Karen is in a position to look at what's happening rationally.

That soft, sweet, drowsy darkness gives way to a kind of rocking warmth, and it takes him a couple of seconds to figure out what's going on before he opens his eyes. They're moving together again, he realizes. But not frantic, this time. No, this time it's slow and sleepy, and he's not actually sure Karen is awake. Her eyes are still closed, though there's a delicate-looking smile curving in the corner of her lips.

"Page?" He asks, and she replies with a sleepy murmur and, softly, "Keep going, don't stop."

Well, who is he to deny the lady? He feels his eyebrows twitch as that thought runs through his head. It's not — that's not them, is it? But it's just a stupid phrase, a dumb thought. It's not like it matters.

Frank woke up just in time, because he only manages a few thrusts before he can feel the shudders rolling through her. This one hits her in waves, from the way she reacts, and in the gray glow of early morning light from the window, bouncing off her golden walls and making all that golden hair shine, it's beautiful.

He bites his lip as he comes, trying to stay as quiet as she is.

Frank does pull out this time. He still pulls her close, and notes that they're sweaty again. He wonders if he should care. But it feels _good_ to be pressed up against her like this, for their skin to slide and kinda stick together. For the way they smell to intermingle, until she smells like him and he smells like her.

But the stickiness is kinda gross. Not as gross as some of the shit he's seen and done, but enough that when his brain feels less wrapped in cotton, he offers, "Shower?"

"God, yes," is Karen's reply. After a moment, she adds, sounding a little sheepish, "I think, um, I think I might need you to help me up."

Every muscle he has burns as he rolls out of bed and reaches to help her stand. He's not steady on his feet, and neither is she, and after a moment he realizes he's light-headed. He closes his eyes a few times, blinking against the light, and while he's trying to figure out whether or not his brain works, she moves away from him. He half-turns, thinking about reaching out for her again, but she flutters a hand at him, dismissive.

He watches her walk toward her tiny bathroom from the comfort of her tiny bed. There's a twinge of something as he measures her ginger steps and realizes that she's walking like she's sore, but mostly, it just seems right. He doesn't wait long before following her. Her walking like she's aching is right, yeah, but being all the way across the — okay, small, but still — apartment from her is _not_ right. It feels weird and cold.

Much better to follow her. 

She's already rubbing shampoo into her scalp when he half-stumbles into the bathroom. He steps up to follow her and grimaces when he realizes that he's just stepped into the water still wearing his socks. He peels them off and tosses them away, annoyed that he'd forgotten he was wearing them.

Inside the shower it's a fit so tight his shoulders brush up against the wall, but that just means he can press up close. She's warm and soft against him, and he pulls her even closer, burying his nose in the joint where her neck meets her shoulder. She hasn't soaped up, there, or maybe he's somehow smelling himself, but he could swear his nose is picking up his scent on her skin, still. He's not hard yet, but it's obvious what's on his mind when he runs his hands from her hips up her body. 

She shudders, leaning into him even more, saying, "Jesus Christ, Frank." But she doesn't sound annoyed.

"This okay?"

Karen's quiet a long moment before she says, "I — yeah. Yeah, it's okay."

He spends the next few minutes pouring soap over her back and then scrubbing. He takes the chance to massage her. She's gone every bit as tense as he has, as if all the sex has been enough of a workout to stiffen her up a little. He takes the chance, too, to lay kisses along her throat and shoulders. He only has to bend down a little; barefoot, they're almost exactly the same height.

They push against each other as she turns around. Her breasts are flush with his chest, and he loves watching droplets of water make trails on her skin, loves the long line of her throat as she tilts her head back to rinse her hair.

When it's his turn, he sidles past her, lets his back slides against the slick tile. He only has patience for a few moments of her up against his back, trailing fingertips along his chest and shoulders with her mouth at his throat. He turns around, bringing them flush together again, and then drops to his knees, because he can. 

Karen gets what he wants without having to tell her. She leans against the wall while he braces one of her legs over his shoulder. No hesitation — from either of them. He eats her out with the spray pounding a nonsense rhythm into his back and shoulders, happily chasing the taste of her while she chants his name. Christ, the salt of her in his mouth. The way she wriggles and squirms and her hands spasm in his hair. The way her voice is all soft and breathless.

Just like the last few times, she isn't showy when she comes. She's slick, though, wet as the shower.

He's hard by the time they stumble out of the bathroom, hard and kissing her and hungry, too. His stomach gurgles, and then hers joins it. They both turn to look at the kitchen at the same time.

"Something easy?" She suggests.

"Yeah," he agrees.

* * *

They end up drinking coffee and tearing into a few bagels. Mostly because pretty much anything else in her apartment is either a Clif bar or has to be cooked.

Karen pauses a moment, a little bit of the cream froth from her coffee on her lip and for fuck's sake it looks kind of pornographic. Then she leans in and presses her fingertip to the corner of his mouth, swiping away a dab of cream cheese.

It should be a little weird, or maybe a little flirtatious, or maybe both. And yeah, it's those, but — 

He drops the bagel and pulls her close, and when he kisses her, she tastes of coffee and cinnamon and the best part, the actual best part, is the way she grabs the back of his neck and pushes her tongue into his mouth, wresting control of the kiss from him. She slots her lips against his and it's almost a bite, hard pressure from such soft skin, and it's all tongue and teeth and it's like being twenty years old and just smart enough to know how lucky he was, when Maria had been having fun and he'd been along for the ride.

And he's an actual disgusting shitbrick, a total waste of skin, because those thoughts should hurt and they don't. How can it not hurt? What kind of asshole is he, that he can think back to the way his wife kissed him and then let another woman push it out of his head?

Jesus Christ, he's a shitsack, but now he wants her again. Ha, 'again.' Like he's stopped wanting her at all during this whatever the hell is going on between them.

He doesn't get the chance to tell her what he wants. No, this time, Karen drops to her knees, pushing him back against the counter. He hadn't really cared about the tile under his feet, but the side of the counter presses cold against his ass, and he grunts a little. He shuts up when Karen starts tracing her fingertips up his leg, from his knee to his thigh. And he holds himself very still when she licks the head of his cock, looking up at him all the while with heavy-lidded, almost sleepy eyes.

Trying to hold still doesn't manage to stop his whole body from twitching when she takes his cock into her mouth. She lets just the head rest against her lips for a moment, and then she's pushing forward a little, sliding her mouth along him in the kind of slow glide that had driven him half crazy last night.

After that, he gets lost in the softness, the wetness, the warmth of her mouth and the delicate feel of her lips wrapped around him, the gentle suction and the way she bobs her head. The way she just keeps taking more of him in until he's got to be hitting her throat. She gags on him once, but doesn't choke. Christ.

Frank has no idea when he put his hands in her hair, but he grips tight, and her eyes are glassy, and she never stops looking at him. Even when his hips are jerking without his permission, his knees deciding to wobble all on their own. He tries to warn her that he's about to come, but he's coming even as he opens his mouth.

She swallows, because of fucking course she does. 

He scrubs a hand down his face, exhausted and confused both, and worse yet, still crazily horny. Like coming in her mouth hadn't been enough —

Because it hadn't been.

He's not up for more just yet, though, and honestly, he's pretty sure he's about to black out again. He stumbles out of the kitchen, half trying to get some distance from whatever the hell is going on and half just trying to find a soft place to fall asleep. He sprawls on her shitty wicker couch and its pile of throw pillows, and when she joins him, still a little glassy-eyed, the couch creaks a little.

Frank doesn't care, and neither must Karen, because she's curled up close, with her head pillowed on his shoulder, when the world fades away.

* * *

When they wake up, it takes them a while to roll off God's shitty gift to uncomfortable couches. There's some kind of mutual unspoken agreement to head back to bed, but they end up stopping at the kitchen for water. The way Karen's throat moves as she swallows is a fucking trial. He wants to trace lines in her skin, following the motion. He wants to kiss her.

He's so thirsty, though. It's like the hours he'd spent in the desert, in another life. The inside of his throat burns hot and ragged. He's three glasses of water in before it stops hurting. Karen goes for something like five or six, he's pretty sure. He doesn't really keep track. He's already moving through the apartment, tracking down things like his pants and his side-arm. It takes him a couple of tries to pull them on, mostly because he's having a shit time keeping any kind of balance.

There's some sort of tinny noise in one of his ears. It seems to switch ears. Plus he could almost swear he feels something sloshing around in his head, and when he presses his hand to his face, his cheeks feel hot and swollen.

His phone falls out of his pants pocket as he dresses, and once he's steadier, he kneels down to pick it up. The words on it all seem to swim, formed of meaningless symbols that make him squint. He recognizes the number _5_ , but just looking at the screen makes his head hurt. He drops it on Karen's bedside table.

Karen joins him at some point, still naked. He feels his eyebrows arch. Just looking at the long, pale line of her makes his mouth run dry with how much he _wants_.

She settles on top of him, practically, and then he's unbuttoning his jeans.

After, she collapses next to him. Frank rolls so that he can wrap an arm around her and pull her close. She lets out a soft sigh, just barely louder than she had when she'd come a few minutes ago, and relaxes into him. He rubs his hand along her arm, and isn't sure if he's trying to soothe her or himself. The urge to get back to it, to start trying to fuck her through the mattress, is itching in the back of his head again. It's impossible. He knows it's impossible. But he's got this fucking crazy impulse to reach for his dick and see if he can anyway.

He tells himself he's an asshole and keeps running his palm over her arm.

"God," she says, so soft and confused and with an edge of disquiet. "Frank. What's happening to us?"

"No idea," he admits, and presses a kiss to the back of her neck. She giggles, squirming, and he falls asleep again like that, one arm around her, with his fly unbuttoned and his dick resting against her ass.

* * *

He wakes to the sound of the fire escape window opening. Hadn't he wanted to mention to Karen that she should get a damn lock for that? Doesn't matter now, but he's buying a fucking lock for it.

Frank grabs the Colt from the bedside table, reaching over Karen's still sleeping, still naked body, and turns, aiming instinctively at the source of the noise. He pulls the hammer back with the thumb of his right hand, but he braces his grip with his left.

"It's me, Frank," says Murdock, and it actually startles him.

If the Marines hadn't drilled trigger discipline into his head, Murdock would have a couple holes in him, red body armor or no. Frank locks the safety and sets the gun back down on the bedside table, turning over to do it. He doesn't bother to fully holster it; if he doesn't end up grabbing it and firing to make a point, he can do that later, with less risk of waking Karen.

"What are you doing here, Red?" He asks only after the Colt is out of his hand.

Murdock's tone turns faintly snotty. "Well I don't know, Frank, what are you doing here? I've been trying to get in touch with Karen for two days, and when Foggy hadn't heard from her…" He shrugs.

"You came looking. And you somehow didn't find my truck in the parking lot, or figure out Page wasn't sleeping alone tonight, before you opened that window and walked into her place."

"I noticed both," Murdock says, in that blend of angry vigilante and sulky little boy that makes Frank want to laugh, shake his head, and knock a few of Murdock's teeth loose.

Karen sits up abruptly, hands sweeping to her hair to push it back and out of her face. Her back is to the window and where Murdock is standing, and she looks over her shoulder at them. "Then why are you here?"

Murdock doesn't seem surprised at all that she's awake. Must have heard something, Frank can only assume. For his part, he'd thought she was still asleep. Pitched his voice accordingly. It makes him feel like some kind of asshole to have been talking about her like she couldn't hear.

"Because I know what that plant does," Murdock says. He doesn't elaborate, just leaves it there, all dramatic, like they're supposed to give him credit for it or ooh and aah and ask him about it, like he's some goddamn savior.

Frank and Karen both stare at him without saying a word.

"It makes you —" and then the breeze changes, and Murdock seems to take something in, and he says, "I knew I was too late, but — Jesus, Frank, the _kitchen_?"

How the hell Murdock picked up on that, he doesn't know. Doesn't want to know. Doesn't like the tone Murdock is taking. But if the two of them acting like they're on a goddamn honeymoon is because of the plant —

Fuck. He can't think about that. That is not a road he wants to go down right now, not with Murdock in the room and Karen right next to him. He shifts in bed, thinking about how quick he could grab the Colt if he needed to. He's willing to do a number of things to make Murdock leave, but tangoing with his dick out and his fly undone is not high on that list. 

"I think you should go."

"I'm not leaving until you do."

"Are you two really doing this?" Karen sounds tired. She's probably had enough of both of them being stupid in her life. No way she needs more of them being stupid at the same time, in the same room. Especially not her goddamn bedroom, while she's awake.

He doesn't want to leave. The whole idea is gut-crawlingly wrong. He needs to be near her. Craves it, craves her skin and her voice and yeah, her cunt, too, but the real thing is that he just needs to be near her. Some of it's a drive to protect her. He can't pin down the rest.

Still, if she tells him to go, he'll do it. He knows he will, no matter how wrong it feels.

"Ma'am," he hears himself saying, and his voice comes out bleak. But she spares him from admitting he'll go on her say, because she presses up behind him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. Her mouth presses against the shell of his ear.

"Stay," she whispers. "I'm not done with you."

Murdock hears it. He sees it register in the way Murdock changes his stance, body telegraphing shock and disgust. And probably some judgment.

Just to piss him off a little more, Frank asks, "The hell were you thinkin' would happen? Shoving me out, and with her still under? I tell you what, Red, I wonder what you were _looking forward_ to."

And that's how Frank gets the dubious honor of probably being the first non-shitbag to piss Matt Murdock off so much all the blood drains out of his face. He hadn't bothered with the helmet, and his eyes aren't at all focused on them, but they narrow, and he sees Murdock's right hand clench into a fist. There's no doubt in his mind that only Karen's being around has stopped Murdock from punching him just now.

It'd have been a hell of a punch. Textbook.

"I don't think I like what you're implying," he snaps.

"You don't like it? You don't? Tough shit, Red. Your feelings are not my fuckin' problem. You being here when you weren't invited is."

"Karen," Murdock says, a little desperately, but that fist has clenched so hard its knuckles are white, too. "Neither of you is in your right minds. You probably need medical care — at the very least you need to, to rehydrate and eat something. I'm trying to help. I don't want you to — have regrets. To wake up feeling like you've been taken advantage of."

"Taken advantage of?" The words fall out of his mouth, incredulous. "You think I'd —"

"Frank, how long has your friendship with Karen been sexual? Think back." He says the word 'friendship' like it's something disgusting, something dredged out of the river six months after Wilson Fisk dropped it in there.

"Don't answer that," Karen snaps. "Matt, stop it. I told you months ago that I'm not yours to protect."

"This isn't like either of you," Murdock tries, and Karen actually laughs at him. It's sharp and cutting and just this side of hysterical.

"What would you know about what's 'like' me, Matt? You practically sprinted away from the chance to find out."

Which, okay, that is not something Frank was expecting. He feels himself relax a little. Can't place why, exactly, but he feels less on edge knowing Murdock was exactly the kind of idiot who not only let a woman like Karen slip away, but didn't appreciate her when he had her. Although he guesses what Karen has done isn't so much "slipping" away as "jumping out a fucking helo to get away."

Murdock doesn't have a good comeback for that one. He just stares — or maybe listens? — for a moment and then shakes his head, jaw clenched real tight. That probably says most of it, for Murdock, although Frank's pretty sure there's never been a day Murdock didn't take the chance to make some speech.

Frank maybe shouldn't criticize him for that, considering his own habits.

"Alright, Karen," Matt says. "If this is what you want? Alright. But I'm taking the plants with me."

Karen rolls out of bed and heads toward the corner where she'd stashed the flower pots. She picks them up, one in each hand, and then brings them back over. She doesn't really reach toward him with them, just sort of holds them and waits. She makes no move to cover herself, either. Just stands there, chin up. If he didn't hate the idea of Murdock seeing her like this, he'd be damn impressed.

Murdock takes them. And within a minute, he's gone out the fire escape window. Frank crawls out of bed long enough to close the damned thing behind him. He glares at the fact that it doesn't have a decent lock, flips the lock it does have, and — 

Sees Karen. She's still naked as she's been for most of the day. His hands had left bruises on her hips. There are red mouth-prints all over her neck and one of her shoulders, and he honestly isn't sure when or how they got there. He hadn't thought he'd been that rough.

Maybe he wasn't gentle enough these last couple of days, but she still leans into him when he steps up behind her. She lets out a soft sigh as he kisses some of the marks he'd left, pressing his lips to her skin as soft as he knows how. When he takes her back to bed, they both forget all about Matthew Murdock and his disgust with them.

* * *

Someone's banging on the door.

Frank is getting really fucking tired of apparently passing out in Karen Page's bed. And even if this is only the second time he's been woken up by somebody trying to get into Karen's apartment, he's already over it. Karen is staring blearily in the direction of her door, fumbling half-heartedly toward her phone; he assumes to check what time it is.

He has to climb around her to get out of her incredibly tiny bed, and getting back into his jeans is a game of Twister and a half, but when he grabs the Colt, she goes for her Llama-III.

The person knocking on the apartment door hasn't let up yet. Frank peers through the spyhole and frowns. A dark-skinned woman in scrubs, black hair tied back into a messy-looking knot. She's carrying what looks like one of those zip-up coolers, only it's red, and has a white cross printed on the outside.

Nurse? EMT? Somebody pretending to be a nurse or an EMT?

Frank nudges the safety off the Colt and aims it at the stranger's head through the door, even as he opens it just enough to ask who she is.

Totally unaware of the barrel of the gun pointed at her skull, the woman says, "I'm Claire. Looking for Karen? We have a, uh, mutual friend. Into extreme sports. Is this the wrong place? Matt gave me the address."

Frank closes the door in her face and turns to Karen. Her apartment. Her call.

Karen shuts her eyes, but her cheeks are red with embarrassment. She'd had the presence of mind to pull a tee-shirt and some shorts on. After a moment of biting her lip, she says, "Let her in."

He unhooks the chain and opens the door, fading away behind it. Just in case he's needed.


	4. after the green

He stays exactly as long as he needs to make sure the nurse, Claire, isn't a threat — which isn't long at all; she doesn't think to check her six, and she's got some running patter about Murdock that, well, sounds exactly like the altar boy — and then he's gone. Frank takes the time to find his shirts, the tac vest, the jacket. Side-arm back in the holster, holster back on his belt.

He ducks out the fire escape window while Page and Claire are still talking in low voices.

Almost surprisingly, his truck is exactly where he'd left it. He opens the door, and the cotton candy sweet scent, the one that's been dogging him for days now, rushes out. He hadn't really gotten any distance from what had gone on between him and Page in her apartment, but it makes everything feel a hell of a lot closer. He leans forward and gags, but all that comes up is bile.

Frank almost heads back to his shithole safe house. He ends up swinging into a chop shop instead. Spends most of the drive kicking himself, and taking down the assholes inside it — not exactly picky about how they get their cars, and while he doesn't care much about theft, he does care about thieves who knowingly pay murderers for cars — is a combination of instinct and reflex. It does let him stop thinking, at least, but once he's piled up the bodies, it all starts hitting again.

He can't understand what he was thinking, and fuck, but he tries to. Why in the hell didn't he _think_ about what he was doing? How could he have spent two days in an apartment with another woman? Hell, how much of that had Page even really consented to?

The questions nag at him as he unloads the guns, stores them where they'll stay safe and dry. They don't let up even as he hauls out the chop shop's pressure washer and opens the truck's passenger door.

Blasting that goddamn pollen out of the cab is strangely satisfying. Like getting rid of the source of that sickly sweet smell will erase everything that happened. Will make it somehow not matter anymore.

He'd gone over there because he thought she was in danger, and somehow helping another woman he'd put in the line had turned into fucking her. And she hadn't objected, but she hadn't been in her right goddamned mind, either.

The chop shop has a blower. He opens the driver door, then aims it at the inside of the cab. Turns it on. The water starts spraying away, and he halfway manages to lose his train of thought in the onslaught of noise.

* * *

Max is absolutely out of his mind with joy when Frank walks back through the door of his shithole. He goes crazy, in fact, dashing from one wall to the other, over and over again, grunting and whining the whole time like he thinks he can talk. The one thing he doesn't do is jump on Frank, and that's only because he misses.

There's a corner that's basically a puddle, and two days' worth of shit on the floor, and the bag of kibble that Frank left half open is now totally open.

He doesn't even say anything about the mess, doesn't act disappointed at all or act like there's anything wrong when he cleans it up. It ain't the dog's fault. Max did the best he could with the bladder he had and an asshole owner who didn't come home for two days.

They do go for an extra long walk, though, and Max is over-fuckin'-joyed to jog the last few blocks back home. His tongue hangs out, tail wagging and eyes bright, and it's like he's forgiven the dumbass human who picked him up and then let him down. Like all it took was fresh water and a long walk.

Dogs are so much easier than people that way.

He spends the rest of the day in the safehouse doing push-ups and crunches, trying to exhaust himself enough that he can maintain his guns in peace. It's been two days without it, and while that's not actually risky, the thought winds around in his brain, tighter and tighter. Max thinks the push-ups are some kind of game, at least, and then he ends up with sixty pounds of pitbull pressing down on his back.

Honestly, he prefers getting nudged, nuzzled, and not-so-tenderly massaged by dog feet to trying to sit down and focus on his guns. Every time he does, the thoughts come back. The itch in the back of his brain, the throb underneath the metal plate. The sour feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He gets through cleaning the Colts, at least. The 1911 and the M4A1 are what he turns to the most, and he remembers some of the shit that went down, back in his very first deployment, with neglected M4's. They say they get better with every upgrade, every redesign, but he hasn't lived as long as he has by being carefree about maintenance.

The hatred, the regret, they never do quiet down.

* * *

Frank doesn't spend much time looking for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. But he actually wants to find Murdock tonight. Hell, he's _motivated_. So first he checks around that shiny new office Nelson's moved to, and then around Nelson's home. Nothing there but bootprints. He studies them a moment, but he was a scout sniper, not a tracker out of some spaghetti western, and there's no real hint as to when Murdock made those prints, or even if it was Murdock.

Turns out Murdock is hovering protectively on a rooftop two buildings away from Karen's place. He knows the moment Frank climbs onto the roof — it's obvious that he knows, because he tenses, and then turns.

"Frank," he says, and his voice is flat, unimpressed. Not happy to know Frank's up and around, apparently. Not even a little grateful that Frank's actually dressed, this time.

"Red."

"If you were going to check on her, you shouldn't."

"Thought never crossed my mind." And it's the truth. He doesn't mind being on her block, but going near Karen herself? No, he's not that much of a fool.

She's already declined to shoot him once. He's not sure he wants to give her a chance to decide again — and not even because he's worried she'll do it. The truth is she might well not, and he's already not sure how he'll live with being the thing he puts down. Her forgiveness might make it better, but it could so easily make it worse.

How's he supposed to live with his own hypocrisy and her undeserved grace?

"Then why are you here, Frank?"

"I had a — I was out of it for a couple days. Doesn't mean I forgot what started this."

Murdock snorts. "So you're — what, mad? Guilty, Frank? — about what happened, and you're gonna take it out on the people who grew the plumeria xenogenita?"

So that's what it's called. Murdock really had gotten to a botanist while Frank had been out of commission.

"Seem like good targets to me," he points out. "Listen, forget the flower, Red. Forget how I just spent the last two days. They killed _kids_. Lined 'em up, executed 'em, and then left 'em stacked in a warehouse. You think, what, you think I can just let that go?"

Murdock makes this movement, sort of a nod, sort of looking Frank up and down. He's apparently actually blind, though, so Frank's not sure what Murdock sees. Maybe he's listening. Maybe he's tilting his head to engage some other weird ninja sense. Doesn't matter, though, because every ounce of condescension Murdock has ever felt — and that's a lot; even without the altar boy holier-than-thou crap, he's a Columbia-educated douchebag lawyer talking to a jarhead he thinks has cracked — is in it.

"I don't think that's what you're angriest about," Murdock says.

He lets that sink in. The condescension. The assumption that a guy who runs around in red designer body armor and answers to Daredevil knows what he's actually pissed about. Thinks, with all his grand wisdom, that he knows the people around him better than they know themselves. Yeah, it's a hell of a moment, one for the scrapbook, and he almost lets his head rock back in surprise at Murdock's fucking gall.

He doesn't show it, though. Instead, he just gives Murdock the same slow up-and-down Murdock just gave him. And he says, slow and thoughtful, "You know, Red, I don't think I regret what I said. You know, before. I meant it at the time, and I don't think I take a word of it back."

There's that fist clench.

"She never really wanted you, Frank," he says, at once preaching and just being bitchy, like he thinks Frank didn't already know that.

"I know that. Funny thing, Red, because even if she didn't really want me, she was real clear that she didn't want you."

And two things happen at once: Frank realizes that he has spoken the absolute truth, and Murdock's clenched fist finally, _finally_ , heads for his face. He's so lost in the implications of the true thing he'd just said and so ready for _something_ to take this edge off that he doesn't even move, doesn't dodge, doesn't grab and redirect that arm. 

Murdock's knuckle collides with his cheek in one sharp, stinging bloom of pain. It spreads, from cheek to cheekbone to jaw, rumbling on up into his eye socket. He's gonna have a hell of a headache.

And Frank closes his eyes, feels his whole body sagging and relaxing with relief.

The next punch hits him in the exact same spot. So does the third.

Murdock's breathing harshly. He must lower his fist, because there's no fourth blow.

"Are you done being an idiot yet?"

There's a temptation to grab his face. To touch that spot on the bone where the bruise is gonna be. Frank resists. "Am _I_ done being an idiot yet?"

"So she never really wanted you. You didn't really want her, either, Frank. You didn't decide to have sex — sex happened. It was an allergic reaction." He sounds so annoyed, so exasperated. "If she didn't consent, then you didn't, either. Neither one of you is at fault for it."

And that's such an easy way out of it all, such an easy explanation, that Frank wants to believe it. Wants to buy into it, to use it to shut up the guilt and disgust, so much that it aches. But it's too easy. It can't be real.

Murdock must sense his disbelief somehow, because he shakes his head. "I have a report from a botanist and an MD, and if you don't believe them, you can talk to Claire. I emailed the report to Karen; she'll probably send it to you, once she's read through it."

And then he cocks his head like a dog trying to figure out what it's hearing, where the noise is coming from. His whole body jerks, tensing up, and he shakes his head. He swings his way off the roof. Maybe it's easier, not being able to see the blackness around them, the creep of headlights, the sidewalk seven stories below. Maybe it's harder.

In the end, Frank is left on a breezy rooftop seven stories up, with Karen Page two buildings over and Matt Murdock flinging himself headlong at something else to destroy. It's just him and a cold night, icy and clear in the way his own damn brain isn't.

At least he has something to think about. A mystery to solve. Trash to take out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end of this arc! There will probably be additional fallout (I didn't get to do my Weird Medicine nerding out, and y'all, _I understand this plant's place in its native ecology_ , and Frank and Karen need to work through some shit), but that will be in a separate piece. Thank you so much for reading and I love everyone who commented, even if I haven't replied. Probably especially if I haven't replied.
> 
> I really hope you'll join me on the next adventure I write for our two favorite idiots. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from e e cummings' "[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]."


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